I happened to be perusing a few other MUd's on a quest for someone recently and I noticed many of them have a Necromancer class. Upon reviewing many of them, they seem generally to be a cross between mages and clerics. Alignment is pretty much evil though for those who care. A few of the more interesting spells I noted were:

Rotting Flesh lvl 12 (50 mana) rots flesh of victim with duration of 1 tick. works much like phyz alteration oxidize i think.

Summon Shadow lvl 23 ( 85 mana) works much like conjure elemental, except the mob summoned is always identical and stats dont vary.

Vampyric Touch lvl 36 (125 mana) The necromancers answer to energy drain where the hps lost by the victim turn into mana for the caster.

Intensified Summon remort lvl 35 (400 mana) With each gen of the caster, the shadows or skeletons or whatever they summon will have increased stats (no idea how much i didnt stay that long). Lasts for a few ticks??

Mirror Image - Creates a lvl based # of look alikes that take damage in place of the caster. Each clone gets an equal share of hps from the caster (rounded down), so if a caster created 4 , they would be down to 20% of their normal hp's, but 80% less likely to get hit by an aggro mob shrug

Mute lvl 40ish (200 mana) If it lands, the victim would not be able to use any channels normally usable by them, and would be unable to cast spells for the spell duration.

Disentegrate - ok i spelled it wrong but hey…remort skill powerful spell that hits victim for 10x's the casters level ( so a max of 490 hps at lvl 49).

There were alot of other spells listed on the various muds, but they were the normal cleric/mage type spells such as portal, fly, etc etc.

Thought I would share and see what everyone else thinks. -Istari-

i think a necromancer would be an awsome class, with the ability to raise dead to fight for them, would be really interesting to se the corpse of a tarrasque comin after ya

I've always loved Necromancers, and would be ecstatic to see this class added!

Some other thoughts about spells from a mud I used to play that had a very nice Necro class:

Death Bolt (25 mana, level 10) This magic unleashes a multi-tendrilled bolt of black lightning that erupts from the Necromancer's palm to inflict damage to the target. It does not work on undead beings.

Necro Armor (50 mana, level 15?) Within seconds, the character is covered with a mass of bones, skeletal fragments and putrid remains. This disgusting coating does not appear sturdy, but is, in fact, a barrier of protection. Aside from that, the sight of this armor as it envelops its wearer is frightening to watch.

Death Wave (100 mana, level 30's or 40's, could be like Fission) This spell unleashes a wave of necromantic energy that fills the room. Undead are resistant to its effects. This spell works on a large group.

Death Wish (75 mana, level 20's) This spell instills the recipient with no fear of death and suicidal tendencies that result in foolish, death-defying, risk-taking, fights to the death, and unthinking courage. Unbeatable odds and overpowering opponents will not give the victim the least bit of hesitation. It does not work on mindless creatures or those immune to mental diseases, but it does instill a temporary attack and HP bonus as well as set the victim's wimpy to 0.

Death Armor (200 mana, gen 1 or more) This spell summons a field of negative energy which will reflect up to 50% of the damage received. On targets besides the caster, the maximum amount is halved (so 25% max).

Lich Form (500 mana, gen 1 or more, and is permanant)–see my additional post "Has this been done before?" This spell allows the necromancer to transform into a lich. The lich form is vulnerable to magic but resistant to cold, psionic, illusion, unholy, asphyxiation, and poison. The process of transforming into a lich boosts the mental facilities of the caster but severely weakens the caster's physical form. Liches also possess a myriad of other abilities that stem from being so closely tied to necromantic magicks.

Wear Face (150 mana, gen 1 or more) This grotesque magic enables the Necromancer to quickly remove the skin from the face or entire head (including hair) from the skull of a corpse and magically adhere it to his own. The face of the dead man appears completely natural and alive, as if it were the Necromancer's real face. It can make for a completely undetectable physical disguise, unless somebody knows the deceased is dead.

As far as disintigration goes, I would up the damage, espeically if you want to make it a remort spell.

Why?

Well, doing a 15 move-point Discharge I can do anywhere between 250 and 300 damage, I think (2 shots and an ECU student is toasted, they've got about 550 to 600 hp). And the number of move points i can pump into it increases with level.

Here are some other thoughts about new classes:

How about some "speciality" mages, that a person could choose from if they are a) a prime mage and b) are remorting.

Some thoughts are:

Pyromancer (fire specialist, duh. Maybe an innate resistance to fire, plus new fire-based spells)

Cryomancer (cold specilist. Innate resistance to cold, plus ice/cold based spells)

Necromancer (as previously mentioned).

Chronomancer (time specialist. time-related spells–like extension of spell affects, haste, etc, just to name some ideas).

And, while I'm at it…how about offshoots for other classes:

Shaman (offshoot of Barb). Has many of the original barb skills, but coupled with minor healing, minor defense, good offense, and some good offensive buffs.

Ninja (offshoot of Monk). Many of the monk skills, plus some additional defense/evasion/obscurment/assassin type spells or skills. Maybe allowing Neutral and Evil alignments would be ok.

Druid (blend of cleric and ranger classes). A mud isn't complete without a druid! :)

Chemist (perhaps a new future class all-together). I can think of tons of things that a Chemist could do both offensively and defensively.

What do you think? :) Is there some potential here?

ive also been thinkin of a new class, after playing a few games with this class i think itd be interesting to have a lancer class. Somethin where they can only use lances/spears, basicly a night with more skills than spells and has a lancer and uses the skill dive to jump into the air and dive into their opponent with their spear and about what panzer said about the ninja class, let those go into the mopnk class where you can go to 3 different alignments evil you go ninja good samurai and neautral is monk. Just some lil ideas :P

there should be a pimp future class… specializes in canes, gets a spell like "summon hooker" (similar to unholy stalker or somethin) yeah, i think that'd be pretty badass, but maybe thats just me

i love the specialized classes idea!

the idea of a necro is so cool i almost fell off my chair when i imagined it coming to tempus. but, when i read the previous post i noticed one thing was missing, and it seemed pretty obvious to me: animate corpse! this spell is the backbone for the class, and yet no one mentioned it yet. it would be cool if you got it to start, like punch, but it was basically useless until level 15 or so. you could resurrect bigger creatures as you got higher in level, and the stregnth of the risen mob would depend on the ability of the caster, the casters level, etc… for example, when i lower level player tried to animate a corpse, it would be only a shadow of its former self. but, as the necro grew in power, the corpses would be more and more powerful until they might even be more powerful then when they were alive. also, corpse explosion would rock my socks =)

or, just make animate undead, the evil cleric spell like that

a dark sorcerer and a holy sage would be nice to have…. when a mage remorts, it's alignment will determine which class it remorts in to…